Doomtints

Untrue, I'm also basing it on last offseason. For whatever reason people are swarming at the moment and taking narrow/bizarre interpretations of my statements and attacking them, so I will bow out of this conversation. I'll be back when people are ready to converse instead of whatever-this-is.

Analytics are pointless if they are not using them, right? Why would we buy into the Twins becoming metrics geniuses when there are no results from whatever-it-is-they-are-doing?

Nor do I care about what's been done behind the scenes. I'm talking about key signings since they arrived.

How so? They still haven't done anything, 12+ months after joining the team.

The much heralded Astros system is a web interface which was hacked, if you recall. Seeing as media and baseball were incredibly impressed with what the Astros built, would it *truly* surprise you if other teams mimicked it as being forward-thinking? You're putting too much faith into the metrics abilities for a team which has never proven competence in the area.

We'll find out soon. It will be good to know one way or the other so we can move on to the next thing.

The Twins have 623 employees which does not include players. They have an adequate IT staff. I think both of you are still missing what I'm saying. It's not an accomplishment in analytics to be using the cloud as a data storage device, which is what you are defending. Whether the data is on your hard drive or on the cloud, it's no difference. It's what you do with the data. The fact that the cloud was brought up as a great accomplishment in the world of analytics means to me that what the poster was stating is they have a tool built to spit out what they want to see. This is limiting because they're not seeing anything else without talking to a programmer.

Tattoos are crazy, man. I would never get a tattoo. But I would get a tat 3! http://www.deppimpact.com/images/bodyart/lefthand3.jpg

Garver will get a chance, but Molitor seems to get frustrated quickly by mistakes on defense. The Twins clearly like his bat as evidenced by him playing 3 positions + DH last year in a small sample, but if Garver wants to stick around he has to catch/defend well.

We are responding to second- or even third-hand information so we don't need to debate it, but I think the only reason someone would bring up a "cloud" in this instance is if they are referring to an interface built to spit out the information they want to see, a-la Salesforce. Because, as you said, if it's just a storage device it doesn't matter.

I wouldn't want to run analytics in a cloud. You'd be stuck with the views that the web programmers are able to give you. If you want to see something in a new way, you're stuck waiting for someone to program it, and they might have higher priority stuff to do or some other yob might deny the request because he or she doesn't understand your new theory. Most of us would rather have the raw data and the tools to put it together ourselves, or at least have our assistant do it, in a tool that is more nimble. A player database in the cloud, sure. I'm sure everybody has that. But download the raw data so you can test premises quickly.

I'm betting he could still play, so he should be a fresh perspective in the clubhouse. It seems like "special assistants" are mostly only around during spring training, though.

The Director of Baseball Operations has nothing to do with the person who was the long-time President of Baseball Operations and is now the President and CEO? Interesting organization structure.

I saw this... I'd never heard of this guy, and his role makes me wonder even more about what St. Peter does.

No one expects the Pohlads to be giving the Twins front office a blank check, with ever increasing amounts of cash being available every year for all eternity with no budgets whatsoever. Only the defense industry gets this luxury. Still, we all saw Jim Pohlad say when he fired Ryan that $ was never a big concern and he felt bad that Ryan thought it was. He said very clearly that the pocketbook opens if the front office can use the cash to field a winning team. Sure, we suspected this was BS and, so far, it has been. When it comes to 'doing something stupid' as you say, I feel like Darvish is a risky move. I wouldn't do it as a GM. As for Arrieta, he's on the decline. I would be chasing after the others, and if that's happening we're not hearing about it. I would just like to see something happen that matters. The Twins, thanks to a down year in the AL, won a wild card spot with giant holes in starting pitching. What happened in the playoffs was predicted by all of us. The Twins won't make the playoffs again with this same group of starters. Does the front office understand this, or are they still relaxing on Christmas break?

Can't hit, can't field, can't steal, doesn't fill a need. Cool, cool.

Revenue is not a barrier for the Twins to sign free agents. Not sure why convos always end up going that way. It's not reality.

EXCLUSIVE: Here is the gif the Dodgers sent the Twins last offseason in response to the Twins asking if they wanted to trade three players for Dozier. http://i.imgur.com/khb6gTI.gif

Emoticon chat seems to work great for trading players to and from Asia, yeah. With the sheer number of signings by this team, it's fun to see Levine share his secrets to success. I was wondering how he was able to do so much. Also, the best way to negotiate with the Yankees is on Teamspeak while playing Counter Strike. The best way to negotiate a trade with Terry Ryan was over a game of pick-up Scrabble. As Levine said, it's not about negotiation strategy anymore. It's just about memes. Like this one that helped us get rid of Nolasco. You can't argue with results.

They can go to him.

Sano's bat-fu is legit. His offense won't tank. I don't care about his defense because I realize he is not in the MLB for his glove. The Twins need to figure out the same. Sano is in the 2.5% of players whose defense is irrelevant -- the Twins have not had such a player since Ortiz Killebrew so they simply don't know how to handle it.

When Walsh missed the field goal I remember the feeling of my heart falling into my stomach. Then I remembered, oh, this is the Vikings, there's no point in feeling this feeling yet again. I stopped following the Vikings in the Tommy Kramer years but of course picked them up again in 98. It wasn't just that they were good in 98, but they had been pretty good for a couple of years before. I vaguely remember some of the playoff games from the 70s. I remember the Pittsburgh superbowl, the Pearson game, etc. This year seems different but we'll see.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/photos/each-nfl-teams-most-soul-crushing-playoff-loss/ For the Vikings I bet you can guess which year is listed. However, the Vikings have no shortage of embarrassing playoff losses. There are too many to list.

I agree with all four of your points. If this is what you think, I'm not sure how you would trust Falvey's apparent inaction. Nor do I understand why you think we disagree. If there is an interest, they should be talking. If there is no interest from Darvish, Falvey should know this already, mostly because they should have been talking.....

Falvey knows more about free agency than the teams who have signed more free agents than him, and who have spoken with Darvish already? I find this difficult to believe, but I'll be happy to change my opinion when I see Darvish in a Twins uniform. Maybe Falvey is so awesome that he can sign top free agents without talking to them, this would be pretty cool. He can just snap his fingers and free agents sign on the dotted line!